A tenseness about his mouth told the gambler that much was staked on this acceptance. He turned the nugget in his hand, noting the discoloration of the ore from which it had been taken.
"It is a fine specimen," he said.
"You will see," said David, "both its size and weight."
And Connor knew; it was an exchange for the ivory head. He laid the nugget carelessly back upon the table, thankful that the gift had been offered with such suspicious bluntness.
"It is a fine specimen," he repeated, "but I am not collecting."
There was a heavy cloud on the face of David as he took up the nugget and passed it into the hand of the waiting servant; but his glance was for Joseph, not Connor.
Joseph burst into speech for the first time, and the words tumbled out.
"I do not want it. I shall not keep it. See, David; I give it up to him!" He made a gesture with both hands as though he would push away the ape-head forever.
The master looked earnestly at Connor.
"You hear?"
The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying: "I've never taken back a gift, and I can't begin now."
Connor's heart was beating rapidly, from the excitement of the strange interview and the sense of his narrow escape from banishment. Because he had made the gift to Joseph he had an inalienable right, it seemed, to expect some return from Joseph's master—even permission to stay in the valley, if he insisted.
There was another of those uncomfortable pauses, with the master looking sternly into the night.
"Zacharias," he said.
The servant stepped beside him.
"Bring the whip—and the cup."
The eyes of Zacharias rolled once toward Joseph and then he was gone, running; he returned almost instantly with a seven foot blacksnake, oiled until it glistened. He put it in the hand of David, but only when Joseph stepped back, shuddering, and then turned and kneeled before David, the significance of that whip came home to Connor, sickening him. The whites of Joseph's eyes rolled at him and Connor stepped between Joseph and the whip.
"Do you mean this?" he gasped. "Do you mean to say that you are going to flog that poor fellow because he took a gift from me?"
"From you it was a gift," answered the master, perfectly calm, "but to him it was a price. And to me it is a great trouble."
"God!" murmured Connor.
"Do you call on him?" asked the brown man severely. "He is only here in so far as I am the agent of his justice. Yet I trust it is not more His will than it is the will of David. Also, the heart of Joseph is stubborn and must be humbled. Tears are the sign of contrition, and the whip shall not cease to fall until Joseph weeps."
His glance pushed Connor back; the gambler saw the lash whirled, and he turned his back sharply before it fell. Even so, the impact of the lash on flesh cut into Connor, for he had only to take back the gift to end the flogging. He set his teeth. Could he give up his only hold on David and the Eden Grays? By the whizzing of the lash he knew that it was laid on with the full strength of that muscular arm. Now a horrible murmur from the throat of Joseph forced him to turn against his will.
The face of David was filled, not with anger, but with cruel disdain; under his flying lash the welts leaped up on the back of Joseph, but he, with his eyes shut and his head strained far back, endured. Only through his teeth, each time he drew breath, came that stifled moan, and he shuddered at each impact of the whip. Now his eyes opened, and through the mist of pain a brutal hatred glimmered at Connor. That flare of rage seemed to sap the last of his strength, for now his face convulsed, tears flooded down, and his head dropped. Instantly the hand of David paused.
Something had snapped in Connor at the same time that the head of Joseph fell, and while he wiped the wet from his face he only vaguely saw Joseph hurry down the corridor, with Zacharias carrying the whip behind.
But the master? There was neither cruelty nor anger in his face as he turned to the table and filled with milk the wooden cup which Zacharias had brought.
"This is my prayer," he said quietly, "that in the justice of David there may never be the poison of David's wrath." 79
He drained the cup, broke a morsel of bread from the loaf and ate it. Next he filled the second cup and handed it to the gambler.
"Drink."
Automatically Connor obeyed.
"Eat."
In turn he tasted the bread.
"And now," said the master, in the deep, calm voice, "you have drunk with David in his house, and he has broken bread with you. Hereafter may there be peace and good will between us. You have given a free gift to one of my people, and he who gives clothes to David's people keeps David from the shame of nakedness; and he who puts bread in the mouths of David's servants feeds David himself. Stay with me, therefore, Benjamin, until you find in the Garden the thing you desire, then take it and go your way. But until that time, what is David's is Benjamin's; your will be my will, and my way be your way."
He paused.
"And now, Benjamin, you are weary?"
"Very tired."
"Follow me."
It seemed well to Connor to remove himself from the eye of the master as soon as possible. Not that the host showed signs of anger, but just as one looks at a clear sky and forebodes hard weather because of misty horizons, so the gambler guessed the frown behind David's eyes. He was glad to turn into the door which was opened for him. But even though he guessed the danger, Connor could not refrain from tempting Providence with a speech of double meaning.
"You are very kind," he said. "Good night, David."
"May God keep you until the morning, Benjamin."
From the house of David, Joseph skulked down the terraces until he came to the two long buildings and entered the smaller of these. He crossed a patio, smaller than the court of David's house; but there, too, was the fountain in the center and the cool flooring of turf. Across this, and running under the dimly lighted arcade, Joseph reached a door which he tore open, slammed behind him again, and with his great head fallen upon his chest, stared at a little withered Negro who sat on a stool opposite the door. It was rather a low bench of wood than a stool; for it stood not more than six inches above the level of the floor. His shoes off, and his bare feet tucked under his legs, he sat tailorwise and peered up at the giant. The sudden opening of the door had set his loose blouse fluttering about the old man's skeleton body. The sleeves fell back from bony forearms with puckered skin. He was less a man than a receptacle of time. His temples sank in like the temples of a very old horse; his toothless mouth was crushed together by the pressure of the long bony jaw, below which the skin hung in a flap. But the fire still glimmered in the hollows of his eyes. A cheerful spirit lived in the grasshopper body. He was knitting with a pair of slender needles, never looking at his work, nor during the interview with Joseph did he once slacken his pace. The needles clicked with such swift precision that the work grew perceptibly, flowing slowly under his hands.
Meanwhile this death's head looked at the giant so steadily that Joseph seemed to regret his unceremonious entrance. He stood back against the door, fumbling its knob for a moment, but then his rage mastered him once more, and he burst into the tale of Connor's coming and the ivory head. He brought his story to an end by depositing the trinket before the ancient man and then stood back, his face still working, and waited with every show of confident curiosity.
As for the antique, his knitting needles continued to fly, but to view the little carving more closely he craned his skinny neck. At that moment, with his fallen features, his fleshless nose, he was a grinning mummy head. He remained gloating over the little image so long that Joseph stirred uneasily; but finally the grotesque lifted his head. It at once fell far back, the neck muscles apparently unable to support its weight. He looked more at the ceiling than at Joseph. His speech was a writhing of the lips and the voice a hollow murmur.
"This," he said, "is the face of a great suhman. It is the face of the great suhman, Haneemar. It was many years ago that I knew him. It was a time so long ago that I do not know how to tell you. It was before your birth and the birth of your father. It was when I lived in a green country where the air is thick and sweet and the sun burns. There I knew Haneemar. He is a strong suhman. You see, his eyes are green; that is because he has the strength of the great snake that ties its tail around a branch and hangs down with its head as high as the breast of a man. Those snakes kill an antelope and eat it at a mouthful. Their eyes are green and so are the eyes of Haneemar. And you see that Haneemar has golden teeth. That is because he has eaten wisdom. He knows the meat of all things like a nut he can crack between his teeth. He is as strong as the snake which eats monkeys, and he is as wise as the monkeys that run from the snake and throw sticks from the tops of the trees. That is Haneemar.
"There is no luck for the man who carries the face of Haneemar with him. That is why David used the whip. He knew Haneemar. Also, in the other days I remember that when a child was sick in the village they tied a goat in the forest and Haneemar came and ate the goat. If he ate the goat like a lion and left tooth marks on the bones then the child got well and lived. If he ate the goat like a panther and left the guts the child died. But if the goat was not eaten for one day then Haneemar came and ate the child instead. I remember this. There will be no luck for you while you carry Haneemar."
The big man had heard this speech with eyes that grew rounder and rounder. Now he caught up the little image and raised his arm to throw it through the window. But the old man hissed, and Joseph turned with a shudder.
"You cannot throw Haneemar away," said the other. "Only when some one takes him freely will you be rid of him."
"It is true," answered Joseph. "I remember the visitor would not take him back."
"Then," said the old sage, "if the stranger will not take him back, bad luck has come into the Garden, for only the stranger would carry Haneemar out again. But do not give Haneemar to one of our friends, for then he will stay with us all. If you dig a deep hole and bury him in it, Haneemar may not be able to get out."
Joseph was beginning to swell with wrath.
"The stranger has put a curse on me," he said. "Abraham, what shall I do to him? Teach me a curse to put on him!"
"Hush!" answered Abraham. "Those who pray to evil spirits are the slaves of the powers they pray to."
"Then I shall take this Benjamin in my hands!"
He made a gesture as though he were snapping a stick of dry wood.
"You are the greater fool. Is not this Benjamin, this stranger, a guest of the master?"
"I shall steal him away by night in such a manner that he shall not make even the noise of a mouse when the cat breaks its back. I shall steal him away and David will never know."
The loose eyelids of the old man puckered and his glance became a ray of light.
"The curse already works; Haneemar already is in your mind, Joseph. David will not know? Child, there is nothing that he does not know. He uses us. We are his tools. My mind is to him as my hand is to me. He comes inside my eyes; he knows what I think. And if old Abraham is nothing before David, what is Joseph? Hush! Let not a whisper go out! Do not even dare to think it. You have felt the whip of David, but you have not felt his hand when he is in anger. A wounded mountain lion is not so terrible as the rage of David; he would be to you as an ax at the root of a sapling. These things have happened before. I remember. Did not Boram once anger John? And was not Boram as great as Joseph? And did not John take Boram in his hands and conquer him and break him? Yes, and David is a greater body and a stronger hand than John. Also, his anger is as free as the running of an untaught colt. Remember, my son!"
Joseph stretched out his enormous arms and his voice was a broken wail.
"Oh, Abraham, Abraham, what shall I do?"
"Wait," said the old man quietly. "For waiting makes the spirit strong. Look at Abraham! His body has been dead these twenty years, but still his spirit lives."
"But the curse of Haneemar, Abraham?"
"Haneemar is patient. Let Joseph be patient also."
Connor wakened in the gray hour of the morning, but beyond the window the world was much brighter than his room. The pale terraces went down to scattered trees, and beyond the trees was the water of the lake. Farther still the mountains rolled up into a brighter morning. A horse neighed out of the dawn; the sound came ringing to Connor, and he was suddenly eager to be outside.
In the patio the fountain was still playing. As for the house, he found it far less imposing than it had been when lantern light picked out details here and there. The walls and the clumsy arches were the disagreeable color of dried mud and all under the arcade was dismal shadow. But the lawn was already a faintly shining green, and the fountain went up above the ground shadow in a column of light. He passed on. The outside wall had that squat, crumbling appearance which every one knows who has been in Mexico—and through an avenue of trees he saw the two buildings between which he had ridden the night before. From the longer a man was leading one of the gray horses. This, then, was the stable; the building opposite it was a duplicate on a smaller scale of the house of David, and must be the servants' quarters.
Connor went on toward a hilltop which alone topped the site of the master's house; the crest was naked of trees, and over the tops of the surrounding ones Connor found that he commanded a complete view of the valley. The day before, looking from the far-off mountaintop, it had seemed to be a straight line very nearly, from the north to the south; now he saw that from the center both ends swung westward. The valley might be twelve miles long, and two or three wide, fenced by an unbroken wall of cliffs. Over the northern barrier poured a white line of water, which ran on through the valley in a river that widened above David's house into a spacious lake three or four miles long. The river began again from the end of the lake and continued straight to the base of the southern cliffs. Roads followed the swing of the river closely on each side, and the stream was bridged at each end of the lake. His angle of vision was so small that both extremities of the valley seemed a solid forest, but in the central portion he made out broad meadow lands and plowed fields checkering the groves. The house, as he had guessed the evening before, stood into the lake on a slender peninsula. And due west a narrow slit of light told of the gate into the Garden. It gave him a curiously confused emotion, as of a prisoner and spy in one.
He had walked back almost to the edge of the clearing when David, from the other side went up to the crest of the hill. Connor was already among the trees and he watched unobserved. The master of the Garden, at the top of the hill, paused and turned toward Connor. The gambler flushed; he was about to step out and hail his host when a second thought assured him that he could not have been noticed behind that screen of shrubbery and trunks; moreover the glance of David Eden passed high above him. It might have been the cry of a hawk that made him turn so sharply; but through several minutes he remained without moving either hand or head, and as though he were waiting. Even in the distance Connor marked the smile of happy expectation. If it had been another place and another man Connor would have thought it a lover waiting for his mistress.
But, above all, he was glad of the opportunity to see David and remain unseen. He realized that the evening before it had been difficult to look directly into David's face. He had carried away little more than impressions; of strength, dignity, a surface calm and strong passions under it; but now he was able to see the face. It was full of contradiction; a profile irregular and deeply cut, but the full face had a touch of nobility that made it almost handsome.
As he watched, Connor thought he detected a growing excitement in David—his head was raised, his smile had deepened. Perhaps he came here to rejoice in his possessions; but a moment later Connor realized that this could not be the case, for the gaze of the other must be fixed as high as the mountain peaks.
At that instant came the revelation; there was a stiffening of the whole body of David; his breast filled and he swayed forward and raised almost on tiptoe. Connor, by sympathy, grew tense—and then the miracle happened. Over the face of David fell a sudden radiance. His hair, dull black the moment before, now glistened with light, and the swarthy skin became a shining bronze; his lips parted as though he drank in strength and happiness out of that miraculous light.
The hard-headed Connor was staggered. Back on his mind rushed a score of details, the background of this picture. He remembered the almost superhuman strength of Joseph; he saw again the old servants withering with many years, but still bright-eyed, straight and agile. Perhaps they, too, knew how to stand here and drink in a mysterious light which filled their outworn bodies with youth of the spirit, at least. And David? Was not this the reason that he scorned the world? Here was his treasure past reckoning, this fountain of youth. Here was the explanation, too, of that intolerable brightness of his eye.
The gambler bowed his head.
When he looked up again his soul had traveled higher and lower in one instant than it had ever moved before; he was staring like a child. Above all, he wanted to see the face of David again, to examine that mysterious change, but the master was already walking down the hill and had almost reached the circle of the trees on the opposite side of the slope. But now Connor noted a difference everywhere surrounding him. The air was warmer; the wind seemed to have changed its fiber; and then he saw that the treetops opposite him were shaking and glistening in a glory of light. Connor went limp and leaned against a tree, laughing weakly, silently.
"Hell," he said at length, recovering himself. "It was only the sunrise! And me—I thought—"
He began to laugh again, aloud, and the sound was caught up by the hillside and thrown back at him in a sharp echo. Connor went thoughtfully back to the house. In the patio he found the table near the fountain laid with a cloth, the wood scrubbed white, and on it the heavy earthenware. David Eden came in with the calm, the same eye, difficult to meet. Indeed, then and thereafter when he was with David, he found himself continually looking away, and resorting to little maneuvers to divert the glance of his host.
"Good morrow," said David.
"I have kept you waiting?" asked Connor.
The master paused to make sure that he had understood the speech, then replied:
"If I had been hungry I should have eaten."
There was no rebuff in that quiet statement, but it opened another door to Connor's understanding.
"Take this chair," said David, moving it from the end of the table to the side. "Sitting here you can look through the gate of the patio and down to the lake. It is not pleasant to have four walls about one; but that is a thing which Isaac cannot understand."
The gambler nodded, and to show that he could be as unceremonious as his host, sat down without further words. He immediately felt awkward, for David remained standing. He broke a morsel from the loaf of bread, which was yet the only food on the table, and turned to the East with a solemn face.
"Out of His hands from whom I take this food," said the master—"into His hands I give myself."
He sat down in turn, and Isaac came instantly with the breakfast. It was an astonishing menu to one accustomed to toast and coffee for the morning meal. On a great wooden platter which occupied half the surface of the table, Isaac put down two chickens, roasted brown. A horn-handled hunting knife, razor sharp, was the only implement at each place, and fingers must serve as forks. To David that was a small impediment. Under the deft edge of his knife the breast of one chicken divided rapidly; he ate the white slices like bread. Indeed, the example was easy to follow; the mountain air had given him a vigorous appetite, and when Connor next looked up it was at the sound of glass tinkling. He saw Isaac holding toward the master a bucket of water in which a bottle was immersed almost to the cork; David tried the temperature of the water with his fingers with a critical air, and then nodded to Isaac, who instantly drew the cork. A moment later red wine was trickling into Connor's cup. He viewed it with grateful astonishment, but David, poising his cup, looked across at his guest with a puzzled air.
"In the old days," he said gravely, "when my masters drank they spoke to one another in a kindly fashion. It is now five years since a man has sat at my table, and I am moved to say this to you, Benjamin: it is pleasant to speak to another not as a master who must be obeyed, but as an equal who may be answered, and this is my wish, that if I have doubts of Benjamin, and unfriendly thoughts, they may disappear with the wine we drink."
"Thank you," said Connor, and a thrill went through him as he met the eye of David. "That wish is my wish also—and long life to you, David."
There was a glint of pleasure in the face of David, and they drank together.
"By Heaven," cried Connor, putting down the cup, "it is Médoc! It is Château Lafite, upon my life!"
He tasted it again.
"And the vintage of '96! Is that true?"
David shook his head.
"I have never heard of Médoc or Château Lafite."
"At least," said Connor, raising his cup and breathing the delicate bouquet, "this wine is Bordeaux you imported from France? The grapes which made this never grew outside of the Gironde!"
But David smiled.
"In the north of the Garden," he said, "there are some low rolling hills, Benjamin; and there the grapes grow from which we make this wine."
Connor tasted the claret again. His respect for David had suddenly mounted; the hermit seemed nearer to him.
"You grew these grapes in your valley?" he repeated softly.
"This very bottle we are drinking," said David, warming to the talk. "I remember when the grapes of this vintage were picked; I was a boy, then."
"I believe it," answered Connor solemnly, and he raised the cup with a reverent hand, so that the sun filtered into the red and filled the liquid with dancing points of light.
"It is a full twenty years old."
"It is twenty-five years old," said David calmly, "and this is the best vintage in ten years." He sighed. "It is now in its perfect prime and next year it will not be the same. You shall help me finish the stock, Benjamin."
"You need not urge me," smiled Connor.
He shook his head again.
"But that is one wine I could have vowed I knew—Médoc. At least, I can tell you the soil it grows in."
The brows of the host raised; he began to listen intently.
"It is a mixture of gravel, quartz and sand," continued Connor.
"True!" exclaimed David, and looked at his guest with new eyes.
"And two feet underneath there is a stone for subsoil which is a sort of sand or fine gravel cemented together."
David struck his hands together, frankly delighted.
"This is marvelous," he said, "I would say you have seen the hills."
"I paid a price for what I know," said Connor rather gloomily. "But north of Bordeaux in France there is a strip of land called the Médoc—the finest wine soil in the world, and there I learned what claret may be—there I tasted Château Lafite and Château Datour. They are both grown in the commune of Pauillac."
"France?" echoed David, with the misty eyes of one who speaks of a lost world. "Ah, you have traveled?"
"Wherever fine horses race," said Connor, and turned back to the chicken.
"Think," said David suddenly, "for five years I have lived in silence. There have been voices about me, but never mind; and now you here, and already you have taken me at a step halfway around the world.
"Ah, Benjamin, it is possible for an emptiness to be in a manlike hunger, you understand, and yet different—and nothing but a human voice can fill the space."
"Have you no wish to leave your valley for a little while and see the world?" said Connor, carelessly.
He watched gloomily, while an expression of strong distaste grew on the face of David. He was still frowning when he answered:
"We will not speak of it again."
He jerked his head up and cleared away his frown with an effort.
"To speak with one man in the Garden—that is one thing," he went on, "but to hear the voices of two jabbering and gibbering together—grinning like mindless creatures—throwing their hands out to help their words, as poor Joseph does—bah, it is like drinking new wine; it makes one sick. It made me so five times."
"Five times?" said Connor. "You have traveled a good deal, then?"
"Too much," sighed David. "And each time I returned from Parkin Crossing I have cared less for what lies outside the valley."
"Parkin Crossing?"
"I have been told that there are five hundred people in the city," said David, pronouncing the number slowly. "But when I was there, I was never able to count more than fifty, I believe."
Connor found it necessary to cough.
"And each time you have left the valley you have gone no farther than Parkin Crossing?" he asked mildly, his spirits rising.
"And is not that far enough?" replied the master, frowning. "It is a ride between dawn and dark."
"What is that in miles?"
"A hundred and thirty miles," said David, "or thereabout."
Connor closed his eyes twice and then: "You rode that distance between dawn and dark?"
"Yes."
"Over these mountains most of the way?" he continued gently.
"About half the distance," answered David.
"And how long"—queried Connor hoarsely—"how long before your horse was able to make the trip back after you had ridden a hundred and thirty miles in twelve hours?"
"The next day," said David, "I always return."
"In the same time?"
"In the same time," said David.
To doubt that simple voice was impossible. But Connor knew horses, and his credence was strained to the breaking point.
"I should like very much," he said, "to see a horse that had covered two hundred and sixty miles within forty-eight hours."
"Thirty-six," corrected David.
Connor swallowed.
"Thirty-six," he murmured faintly.
"I shall send for him," said the master, and struck the little gong which stood on one side of the table. Isaac came hurrying with that light step which made Connor forget his age.
"Bring Glani," said David.
Isaac hurried across the patio, and David continued talking to his guest.
"Glani is not friendly; but you can see him from a distance."
"And yet," said Connor, "the other horses in the Garden seem as friendly as pet dogs. Is Glani naturally vicious?"
"His is of other blood," replied David. "He is the blood of the great mare Rustir, and all in her line are meant for one man only. He is more proud than all the rest."
He leaned back in his chair and his face, naturally stern, grew tender.
"Since he was foaled no hand has touched him except mine; no other has ridden him, groomed him, fed him."
"I'll be glad to see him," said Connor quietly. "For I have never yet found a horse which would not come to my hand."
As he spoke, he looked straight into the eyes of David, with an effort, and at the same time took from the pocket of his coat a little bulbous root which was always with him. A Viennese who came from a life half spent in the Orient had given him a small box of those herbs as a priceless present. For the secret was that when the root was rubbed over the hands it left a faint odor on the skin, like freshly cut apples; and to a horse that perfume was irresistible. They seemed to find in it a picture of sweet clover, blossoming, and clean oats finely headed; yet to the nostrils of a man the scent was barely perceptible. Under cover of the table the gambler rubbed his hands swiftly with the little root and dropped it back into his pocket. That was the secret of the power over Abra which had astonished the two old men at the gate. A hundred times, in stable and paddock, Connor had gone up to the most intractable race horses and looked them over at close hand, at his leisure. The master seemed in nowise disturbed by the last remark of Connor.
"That is true of old Abraham, also," he said. "There was never a colt foaled in the valley which Abraham had not been able to call away from its mother; he can read the souls of them all with a touch of his withered hands. Yes, I have seen that twenty times. But with Glani it is different. He is as proud as a man; he is fierce as a wolf; and Abraham himself cannot touch the neck of my horse. Look!"
Under the arch of the entrance Connor saw a gray stallion, naked of halter or rope, with his head raised. From the shadow he came shining into the sunlight; the wind raised his mane and tail in ripples of silver. Ben Connor rose slowly from his chair. Horses were religion to him; he felt now that he had stepped into the inner shrine.
When he was able to speak he turned slowly toward David. "Sir," he said hoarsely, "that is the greatest horse ever bred."
It was far more than a word of praise; it was a confession of faith which surrounded the moment and the stallion with solemnity, and David flushed like a proud boy.
"There he stands," he said. "Now make him come to your hand."
It recalled Connor to his senses, that challenge, and feeling that his mind had been snatched away from him for a moment, almost that he had been betrayed, he looked at David with a pale face.
"He is too far away," he said. "Bring him closer."
There was one of those pauses which often come before crises, and Connor knew that by the outcome of this test he would be judged either a man or a cheap boaster.
"I shall do this thing," said the master of the Garden of Eden. "If you bring Glani to your hand I shall give him to you to ride while you stay in the valley. Listen! No other man had so much as laid a hand on the withers of Glani, but if you can make him come to you of his own free will—"
"No," said Connor calmly. "I shall make him come because my will is stronger than his."
"Impossible!" burst out David.
He controlled himself and looked at Connor with an almost wistful defiance.
"I hold to this," he said. "If you can bring Glani to your hand, he is yours while you stay in the Garden—for my part, I shall find another mount."
Connor slipped his right hand into his pocket and crushed the little root against the palm.
"Come hither, Glani," commanded the master. The stallion came up behind David's chair, looking fearlessly at the stranger.
"Now," said David with scorn. "This is your time."
"I accept it," replied Connor.
He drew his hand from his pocket, and leaning over the table, he looked straight into the eye of the stallion. But in reality, it was only to bring that right hand closer; the wind was stirring behind him, and he knew that it wafted the scent of the mysterious root straight to Glani.
"That is impossible," said David, following the glance of Connor with a frown. "A horse has no reasoning brain. Silence cannot make him come to you."
"However," said Connor carelessly, "I shall not speak."
The master set his teeth over unuttered words, and glancing up to reassure himself, his face altered swiftly, and he whispered:
"Now, you four dead masters, bear witness to this marvel! Glani feels the influence!"
For the head of Glani had raised as he scented the wind. Then he circled the table and came straight toward Connor. Within a pace, the scent of strange humanity must have drowned the perfume of the root; he sprang away, catlike and snorted his suspicion.
David heaved a great sigh of relief.
"You fail!" he cried, and snatching up a bottle of wine, he poured out a cup. "Brave Glani! I drink this in your honor!"
Every muscle in David's strong body was quivering, as though he were throwing all the effort of his will on the side of the stallion.
"You think I have failed?" asked Connor softly.
"Admit it," said David.
His flush was gone and he was paler than Connor now; he seemed to desire with all his might that the test should end; there was a fiber of entreaty in his voice.
"Admit it, Benjamin, as I admit your strange power."
"I have hardly begun. Give me quiet."
David flung himself into his chair, his attention jerking from Glani to Connor and back. It was at this critical moment that a faint breeze puffed across the patio, carrying the imperceptible fragrance of the root straight to Glani. Connor watched the stallion prick his ears, and he blessed the quaint old Viennese with all his heart.
The first approach of Glani had been in the nature of a feint, but now that he was sure, he went with all the directness of unspoiled courage straight to the stranger. He lowered the beautiful head and thrust out his nose until it touched the hand of Connor. The gambler saw David shudder.
"You have conquered," he said, forcing out the words.
"Take Glani; to me he is now a small thing. He is yours while you stay in the Garden. Afterward I shall give him to one of my servants."
Connor stood up, and though at his rising Glani started back, he came to Connor again, following that elusive scent. To David it seemed the last struggle of the horse before completely submitting to the rule of a new master. He rose in turn, trembling with shame and anger, while Connor stood still, for about this stranger drifted a perfume of broad green fields with flowering tufts of grass, the heads well-seeded and sweet. And when a hand touched his withers, the stallion merely turned his head and nuzzled the shoulder of Connor inquisitively.
With his hand on the back of the horse, the gambler realized for the first time Glani's full stature. He stood at least fifteen-three, though his perfect proportions made him seem smaller at a distance. No doubt he was a giant among the Eden Grays, Connor thought to himself. The gallop on Abra the night before had been a great moment, but a ride on Glani was a prospect that took his breath. He paused. Perhaps it was the influence of a forgotten Puritan ancestor, casting a shade on every hope of happiness. With his weight poised for the leap to the back of the stallion, Connor looked at David. The master was in a silent agony, and the hand of Connor fell away from the horse. He was afraid.
"I can't do it," he said frankly.
"Jump on his back," urged David bitterly. "He's no more to you than a yearling to the hands of Abraham."
Connor realized now how far he had gone; he set about retracing the wrong steps.
"It may appear that way, but I can't trust myself on his back. You understand?"
He stepped back with a gesture that sent Glani bounding away.
"You see," went on Connor, "I never could really understand him."
The master seized with eagerness upon this gratifying suggestion.
"It is true," he said, "that you are a little afraid of Glani. That is why none of the rest can handle him."
He stopped in the midst of his self-congratulation and directed at Connor one of those glances which the gambler could never learn to meet.
"Also," said David, "you make me happy. If you had sat on his back I should have felt your weight on my own shoulders and spirit."
He laid a hand on Connor's shoulder, but the gambler had won and lost too often with an impenetrable face to quail now. He even managed to smile.
"Hearken," said David. "My masters taught me many things, and everything they taught me must be true, for they were only voices of a mind out of another world. Yet, in spite of them," he went on kindly, "I begin to feel a kinship with you, Benjamin. Come, we will walk and talk together in the cool of the morning. Glani!"
The gray had wandered off to nibble at the turf; he whirled and came like a thrown lance.
"Glani," said David, "is usually the only living thing that walks with me in the morning; but now, my friend, we are three."
In the mid-afternoon of that day Connor rested in his room, and David rested in the lake, floating with only his nose and lips out of water. Toward the center of the lake even the surface held the chill of the snows, but David floated in the warm shallows and looked up to the sky through a film of water. The tiny ripples became immense air waves that rushed from mountain to mountain, dashed the clouds up and down, and then left the heavens placid and windless.
He grew weary of this placidity, and as he turned upon one side he heard a prolonged hiss from the shore. David rolled with the speed of a water moccasin and headed in with his arm flashing in a powerful stroke that presently brought him to the edge of the beach. He rose in front of old Abraham.
A painter should have seen them together—the time-dried body of the old man and the exuberant youth of the master. He looked on the servant with a stern kindness.
"What are you doing here without a covering for your head while the sun is hot? Did they let you come of their own accord, Abraham?"
"I slipped away," chuckled Abraham. "Isaac was in the patio, but I went by him like a hawk-shadow. Then I ran among the trees. Hat? Well, no more have you a hat, David."
The master frowned, but his displeasure passed quickly and he led the way to the lowest terrace. They sat on the soft thick grass, with their feet in the hot sand of the beach, and as the wind stirred the tree above them a mottling of shadow moved across them.
"You have come to speak privately with me," said David. "What is it?"
But Abraham embraced his skinny knees and smiled at the lake, his jaw falling.
"It's not what it was," he said, and wagged his head. "It's a sad lake compared to what it was."
David controlled his impatience.
"Tell me how it is changed."
"The color," said the old man. "Why, once, with a gallon of that blue you could have painted the whole sky." He shaded his face to look up, but so doing his glance ventured through the branches and close to the white-hot circle of the sun. His head dropped and he leaned on one arm.
"Look at the green of the grass," suggested David. "It will rest your eyes."
"Do you think my eyes are weak? No, I dropped my head to think how the world has fallen off in the last fifty years. It was all different in the days of John. But that was before you came to the valley."
"The sky was not the same?" queried the master.
"And men, also," said Abraham instantly. "Ho, yes! John was a man; you will not see his like in these days."
David flushed, but he held back his first answer. "Perhaps."
"There is no 'perhaps.'"
Abraham spoke with a decision that brought his jaw close up under his nose.
"He is my master," insisted Abraham, and, smiling suddenly, he whispered: "Mah ol' Marse Johnnie Cracken!"
"What's that?" called David.
Abraham stared at him with unseeing eyes. A mist of years drifted between them, and now the old man came slowly out of the past and found himself seated on the lawn in a lonely valley with great, naked mountains piled around it.
"What did you say?" repeated David.
Abraham hastily changed the subject.
"In those days if a stranger came to the Garden of Eden he did not stay. Aye, and in those days Abraham could have taken the strongest by the neck and pitched him through the gates. I remember when the men came over the mountains—long before you were born. Ten men at the gate, I remember, and they had guns. But when my master told them to go away they looked at him and they looked at each other, but after a while they went away."
Abraham rocked in an ecstasy.
"No man could face my master. I remember how he sat on his horse that day."
"It was Rustir?" asked David eagerly.
"She was the queen of horses," replied the old man indirectly, "and he was the king of men; there are no more men like my master, and there are no more horses like Rustir."
There was a pause, then David spoke.
"John was a good man and a strong man," he said, looking down at his own brown hands. "And Rustir was a fine mare, but it is foolish to call her the best."
"There was never a horse like Rustir," said the old man monotonously.
"Bah! What of Glani?"
"Yes, that is a good colt."
"A good colt! Come, Abraham! Have you ever opened your dim eyes and really looked at him? Name one fault."
"I have said Glani is a good colt," repeated Abraham, worried.
"Come, come! You have said Rustir was better."
"Glani is a good colt, but too heavy in the forehand. Far too heavy there."
The restraint of David snapped.
"It is false! Ephraim, Jacob, they all say that Glani is the greatest."
"They change like the masters," grumbled Abraham. "The servants change. They flatter and the master believes. But my master had an eye—he looked through a man like an eagle through mist. When I stood before my master my soul was naked; a wind blew through me. But I say John was one man; and there are no other horses like his mare Rustir. My master is silent; other men have words as heavy as their hands."
"Peace, Abraham, peace. You shame me. The Lord was far from me, and I spoke in anger, and I retract it."
"A word is a bullet that strikes men down, David. Let the wind blow on your face when your heart is hot."
"I confess my sin," said David, but his jaw was set.
"Confess your sins in silence."
"It is true."
He looked at Abraham as if he would be rid of him.
"You are angry to-day, Abraham."
"The law of the Garden has been broken."
"By whom?"
"David has unbarred the gate."
"Yes, to one man."
"It is enough."
"Peace, Abraham. You are old and look awry. This one man is no danger. I could break him in my hands—so!"
"A strong man may be hopeless against words," said the oracular old man. "With a word he may set you on fire."
"Do you think me a tinder and dry grass? Set me on fire with a word?"
"An old man who looks awry had done it with a word. And see—again!"
There was a silence filled only by the sound of David's breathing and the slow curling of the ripples on the beach.
"You try me sorely, Abraham."
"Good steel will bend, but not break."
"Say no more of this man. He is harmless."
"Is that a command, David?"
"No—but at least be brief."
"Then I say to you, David, that he has brought evil into the valley."
The master burst into sudden laughter that carried away his anger.
"He brought no evil, Abraham. He brought only the clothes on his back."
"The serpent brought into the first Garden only his skin and his forked tongue."
"There was a devil in that serpent."
"Aye, and what of Benjamin?"
"Tell me your proofs, and let them be good ones, Abraham."
"I am old," said Abraham sadly, "but I am not afraid."
"I wait."
"Benjamin brought an evil image with him. It is the face of a great suhman, and he tempted Joseph with it, and Joseph fell."
"The trinket of carved bone?" asked David.
"The face of a devil! Who was unhappy among us until Benjamin came? But with his charm he bought Joseph, and now Joseph walks alone and thinks unholy thoughts, and when he is spoken to he looks up first with a snake's eye before he answers. Is not this the work of Benjamin?"
"What would you have me do? Joseph has already paid for his fault with the pain of the whip."
"Cast out the stranger, David."
David mused. At last he spoke. "Look at me, Abraham!"
The other raised his head and peered into the face of David, but presently his glance wavered and turned away.
"See," said David. "After Matthew died there was no one in the Garden who could meet my glance. But Benjamin meets my eye and I feel his thoughts before he speaks them. He is pleasant to me, Abraham."
"The voice of the serpent was pleasant to Eve," said Abraham.
The nostrils of David quivered.
"What is it that you call the trinket?"
"A great suhman. My people feared and worshiped him in the old days. A strong devil!"
"An idol!" said David. "What! Abraham, do you still worship sticks and stones? Have you been taught no more than that? Do you put a mind in the handiwork of a man?"
The head of Abraham fell.
"I am weak before you, David," he said. "I have no power to speak except the words of my master, which I remember. Now I feel you rise against me, and I am dust under your feet. Think of Abraham, then, as a voice in the wind, but hear that voice. I know, but I know not why I know, or how I know, there is evil in the valley, David. Cast it out!"
"I have broken bread and drunk milk with Benjamin. How can I drive him out of the valley?"
"Let him stay in the valley if you can keep him out of your mind. He is in your thoughts. He is with you like a shadow."
"He is not stronger than I," said the master.
"Evil is stronger than the greatest."
"It is cowardly to shrink from him before I know him."
"Have no fear of him—but of yourself. A wise man trembleth at his own strength."
"Tell me, Abraham—does the seed of Rustir know men? Do they know good and evil?"
"Yes, for Rustir knew my master."
"And has Glani ever bowed his head for any man saving for me?"
"He is a stubborn colt. Aye, he troubled me!"
"But I tell you, Abraham, he came to the hand of Benjamin!"
The old man blinked at the master.
"Then there was something in that hand," he said at last.
"There was nothing," said David in triumph. "I saw the bare palm."
"It is strange."
"You are wrong. Admit it."
"I must think, David."
"Yes," said the master kindly. "Here is my hand. Rise, and come with me to your house."
They went slowly, slowly up the terrace, Abraham clinging to the arm of the master.
"Also," said David, "he has come for only a little time. He will soon be gone. Speak no more of Benjamin."
"I have already spoken almost enough," said Abraham. "You will not forget."
Although David was smiling when he left Abraham, he was serious when he turned from the door of the old man. He went to Connor's room, it was empty. He summoned Zacharias.
"The men beyond the mountains are weak," said David, "and when I left him a little time since Benjamin was sighing and sleepy. But now he is not in his room. Where is he, Zacharias?"
"Shakra came into the patio and neighed," Zacharias answered, "and at that Benjamin came out, rubbing his eyes. 'My friend,' said he to me, and his voice was smooth—not like those voices—"
"Peace, Zacharias," said David. "Leave this talk of his voice and tell me where he is gone."
"Away from the house," said the old man sullenly.
The master knitted his brows.
"You old men," he said, "are like yearlings who feel the sap running in their legs in the spring. You talk as they run—around and around. Continue."
Zacharias sulked as if he were on the verge of not speaking at all. But presently his eye lighted with his story.
"Benjamin," he went on, "said to me, 'My friend, that is a noble mare.'
"'She is a good filly,' said I.
"'With a hundred and ten up,' said Benjamin, 'she would make a fast track talk.'"
"What?" said David.
"I do not know the meaning of his words," said the old servant, "but I have told them as he said them."
"He is full of strange terms," murmured David. "Continue."
"He went first to one side of Shakra and then to the other. He put his hand into his coat and seemed to think. Presently he stretched out his hand and called her. She came to him slowly."
"Wonderful!"
"That was my thought," nodded Zacharias.
"Why do you stop?" cried David.
"Because I am talking around and around, like a running yearling," said Zacharias ironically. "However, he stood back at length and combed the forelock of Shakra with his fingers. 'Tell me, Zacharias,' he said, 'if this is not the sister of Glani?'"
"He guessed so much? It is strange!"
"Then he looked in her mouth and said that she was four years old."
"He is wise in horses, indeed."
"When he turned away Shakra followed him; he went to his room and came out again, carrying the saddle with which he rode Abra. He put this on her back and a rope around her neck. 'Will the master be angry if I ride her?' he asked.
"I told him that she was first ridden only three months before to-day, and that she must not be ridden more than fifty miles now in a day.
"He looked a long time at me, then said he would not ride farther than that. Then he went galloping down the road to the south."
"Good!" said the master, and sent a long whistle from the patio; it was pitched as shrill and small as the scream of a hawk when the hawk itself cannot be seen in the sky.
Zacharias ran into the house, and when he came out again bringing a pad Glani was already in the patio.
David took the pad and cinched it on the back of the stallion.
"And when Shakra began to gallop," said Zacharias, "Benjamin cried out."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing."
"Zacharias, men do not cry out without speaking."
"Nevertheless," said Zacharias, "it was like the cry of a wolf when they hunt along the cliffs in winter and see the young horses and the cattle in the Garden below them. It was a cry, and there was no spoken word in it."
The master bit his lip.
"Abraham has been talking folly to you," he said; and, springing on the back of the stallion, he raced out of the patio and on to the south road with his long, black hair whipping straight out behind his head.
At length the southern wall rose slowly over the trees, and a deep murmur which had begun about them as soon as they left the house, light as the humming of bees, increasing as they went down the valley, now became a great rushing noise. It was like a great wind in sound; one expected the push of a gale, coming out from the trees, but there was only the river which ran straight at the cliff, split solid rock, and shot out of sunlight into a black cavern. Beside this gaping mouth of rock stood Connor with Shakra beside him. Twice the master called, but Connor could not hear.
The tumbling river would have drowned a volley of musketry. Only when David touched his shoulder did Connor turn a gloomy face. They took their horses across the bridge which passed over the river a little distance from the cliff, and rode down the farther side of the valley until the roar sank behind them. A few barriers of trees reduced it to the humming which on windless days was picked up by echoes and reached the house of David with a solemn murmur.
"I thought you would rest," said David, when they were come to a place of quiet, and the horses cantered lightly over the road with that peculiar stride, at once soft and reaching, which Connor was beginning to see as the chief characteristic of the Eden Gray.
"I have rested more in two minutes on the back of Shakra than I could rest in two hours on my bed."
It was like disarming a father by praise of his son.
"She has a gentle gait," smiled David.
"I tell you, man, she's a knockout!"
"A knockout?"
The gambler added hastily: "Next to Glani the best horse I have seen."
"You are right. Next to Glani the best in the valley."
"In the world," said Connor, and then gave a cry of wonder.
They had come through an avenue of the eucalyptus trees, and now they reached an open meadow, beyond which aspens trembled and flashed silver under a shock from the wind. Half the meadow was black, half green; for one of the old men was plowing. He turned a rich furrow behind him, and the blackbirds followed in chattering swarms in their hunt for worms. The plow team was a span of slender-limbed Eden Grays. They walked lightly with plow, shaking their heads at the blackbirds, and sometimes they touched noses in that cheery, dumb conversation of horses. The plow turned down the field with the sod curling swiftly behind. The blackbirds followed. There were soldier-wings among them making flashes of red, and all the swarm scolded.
"David," said Connor when he could speak, "you might as well harness lightning to your plow. Why in the name of God, man, don't you get mules for this work?"
The master looked to the ground, for he was angered.
"It is not against His will that I work them at the plow," he answered. "He has not warned me against it."
"Who hasn't?"
"Our Father whose name you spoke. Look! They are not unhappy, Jurith and Rajima, of the blood of Aliriz."
He whistled, whereat the off mare tossed her head and whinnied.
"By Heaven, she knows you at this distance!" gasped Connor.
"Which is only to say that she is not a fool. Did I not sit with her three days and three nights when she was first foaled? That was twenty-five years ago; I was a child then."
Connor, staring after the high, proud head of Jurith, sighed. The horses started on at a walk which was the least excellent gait in the Eden Grays. Their high croups and comparatively low withers, their long hindlegs and the shorter forelegs, gave them a waddling motion with the hind quarters apparently huddling the forehand along.
Indeed, they seemed designed in every particular for the gallop alone. But Glani was an exception. Just as in size he appeared a freak among the others, so in his gaits all things were perfectly proportioned. Connor, with a deep, quiet delight, watched the big stallion stepping freely. Shakra had to break into a soft trot now and then to catch up.
"Let us walk," said David. "The run is for when a man feels with the hawk in the sky; the gallop is for idle pleasure; the trot is an ugly gait, for distance only; but a walk is the gait when two men speak together. In this manner Matthew and I went up and down the valley roads. Alas, it is five years since I have walked my horse! Is it not, Glani, my king? And now, Benjamin, tell me your trouble."
"There is no trouble," said Connor.
But David smiled, saying: "We are brothers in Glani, Benjamin. To us alone he has given his head. Therefore speak freely."
"Look back," said Connor, feeling that the crisis had come and that he must now put his fortune to the touch.
David turned on the stallion. "What do you see?"
"I see old Elijah. He drives the two mares, and the furrow follows them—the blackbirds also."
"Do you see nothing else?"
"I see the green meadow and the sky with a cloud in it; I see the river yonder and the aspens flash as the wind strikes them."
"And do you hear nothing?"
"I hear the falling of the Jordan and the cry of the birds. Also, Elijah has just spoken to Rajima. Ah, she is lazy for a daughter of Aliriz!"
"Do you wish to know what I see and hear, David?"
"If it is your pleasure, brother."
"I see a blue sky like this, with the wind and the clouds in it and all that stuff—"
"All of what?"
"And I see also," continued Connor, resolving to watch his tongue, "thousands of people, acres of men and women."
David was breathless with interest. He had a way of opening his eyes and his mind like a child.
"We are among them; they jostle us; we can scarcely breathe. There is a green lawn below us; we cannot see the green, it is so thickly covered with men. They have pulled out their wallets and they have money in their hands."
"What is it?" muttered David. "For my thoughts swim in those waves of faces."
"I see," went on Connor, "a great oval road fenced on each side, with colored posts at intervals. I see horses in a line, dancing up and down, turning about—"
"Ah, horses!"
"Kicking at each other."
"So? Are there such bad manners among them?"
"But what each man is trembling for, and what each man has risked his money upon, is this question: Which of all those is the fastest horse? Think! The horses which fret in that line are the finest money can buy. Their blood lines are longer than the blood lines of kings. They are all fine muscles and hair-trigger nerves. They are poised for the start. And now—"
"Benjamin, is there such love of horses over the mountains? Listen! Fifty thousand men and women breathe with those racers."
"I know." There was a glint in the eyes of David. "When two horses match their speed—"
"Some men have wagered all their money. They have borrowed, they have stolen, to get what they bet. But there are two men only who bet on one of the horses. You, David, and I!"
"Ha? But money is hard to come by."
"We ask them the odds," continued Connor. "For one dollar we shall take a hundred if our horse wins—odds of a hundred to one! And we wager. We wager the value of all we have. We wager the value of the Garden of Eden itself!"
"It is madness, Benjamin!"
"Look closer! See them at the post. There's the Admiral. There's Fidgety—that tall chestnut. There's Glorious Polly—the little bay. The greatest stake horses in the country. The race of the year. But the horse we bet on, David, is a horse which none of the rest in that crowd knows. It is a horse whose pedigree is not published. It is a small horse, not more than fourteen-three. It stands perfectly still in the midst of that crowd of nervous racers. On its back is an old man."
"But can the horse win? And who is the old man?"
"On the other horses are boys who have starved until they are wisps with only hands for the reins of a horse and knees to keep on his back. They have stirrups so short that they seem to be floating above the racers. But on the back of the horse on which we are betting there is only an old, old man, sitting heavily."
"His name! His name!" David cried.
"Elijah! And the horse is Jurith!"
"No, no! Withdraw the bets! She is old."
"They are off! The gray mare is not trained for the start. She is left standing far behind."
"Ah!" David groaned.
"Fifty thousand people laughing at the old gray mare left at the post!"
"I see it! I hear it!"
"She's too short in front; too high behind. She's a joke horse. And see the picture horses! Down the back stretch! The fifty thousand have forgotten the gray, even to laugh at her. The pack drives into the home stretch. There's a straight road to the finish. They straighten out. They get their feet. They're off for the wire!"
The voice of Connor had risen to a shrill cry. "But look! Look! There's a streak of gray coming around the turn. It's the mare! It's old Jurith!"
"Jurith!"
"No awkwardness now! She spreads herself out and the posts disappear beside her. She stretches down low and the rest come back to her. Fine horses; they run well. But Jurith is a racing machine. She's on the hip of the pack! Look at the old man all the thousand were laughing at. He sits easily in the saddle. He has no whip. His reins are loose. And then he uses the posts ahead of him. He leans over and speaks one word in the ear of the gray mare.
"By the Lord, she was walking before; she was cantering! Now she runs! Now she runs! And the fifty thousand are dumb, white. A solid wall of faces covered with white-wash! D'you see? They're sick! And then all at once they know they're seeing a miracle. They have been standing up ever since the horses entered the home-stretch. Now they climb on one another's shoulders. They forget all about thousands—the hundreds of thousands of dollars which they are going to lose. They only know that they are seeing a great horse. And they love that new, great horse. They scream as they see her come. Women break into tears as the old man shoots past the grand stand. Men shriek and hug each other. They dance.
"The gray streak shoots on. She is past the others. She is rushing for the finish wire as no horse ever ran before. She is away. One length, two lengths, six lengths of daylight show between her and the rest. She gallops past the finish posts with Elijah looking back at the others!
"She has won! You have won, David. I have won. We are rich. Happy. The world's before us. David, do you see?"
"Is it possible? But no, Benjamin, not Jurith. Some other, perhaps, Shakra—Glani—"
"No, we would take Jurith—twenty-five years old!"
Connor's last words trailed off into hysterical laughter.